Surprised but not surprised to see people using the standard free speech/censorship arguments in this thread. Surely people can differentiate between standard speech and state sponsored propaganda??? More speech is often the solution to “bad” speech - but I think it would be quite obvious this doesn’t apply to propaganda.
Many non-state actors produce content for RT, including academics and celebrities, and almost all MSM outlets here in the US produce content sponsored/paid for by the US government. It's only propaganda when it's crafted by The State, otherwise it's just the marketing of ideas. The issue at hand is who is filtering/controlling what ideas people are allowed to have access to.
I recommend everyone read Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death," and "How to Watch TV News."
Two straightforward things. It stops Russian propaganda from being broadcast, secondly it destroys their revenue. I think you need to be masochistic to have an enemy broadcast lies to your country and make money in the process.
RT is such a blatant tool of the Russian state it should have been shut down five years ago.
Your first "thing" is begging the question. What is that blatant propaganda (your words) really going to achieve at this point ?
One of the West's key marks of distinction has always been freedom of the press. By allowing our governments to decide what's a lie / propaganda that's not allowed to be published, I feel we set ourselves well on the path to becoming exactly what we're criticising here.
> By allowing our governments to decide what's a lie / propaganda that's not allowed to be published
The headline "RT turns to Peter Thiel's Rumble after Big Tech companies block the network" tells us that private companies blocked the network, not the government.
Freedom of the press like any other freedom has limits and only makes sense if the entity in question actually has any interest in doing free and genuine journalistic work rather than being a glorified arm of a foreign government.
We also value freedom of movement, or commerce or the right to bear arms, doesn't mean we let foreign spies sell weapons to domestic insurgents or let them roam across the border. Democratic freedoms are a contract with a democratic population, or democratic partners, not autocratic adversaries who will use them to undermine the very foundation they're built on.
Peter Thiel was born and spent the first 12 years of his life in Germany. A lot of people worry about Thiel's intentions, but none more so than Germans
I really don't understand the defense against censorship of state controlled propaganda news from people like Glenn Greenwald. That idea that it operates in the normal realm of media is extremely questionable. This is not a slippery slope but clearly delineated line imo.
Knowing the other sides best arguments is a benefit. Censorship is stupid. The pro government media would have love your oppressor. This is so bad in Canada where all the TV stations just parrot the current liberal government's narratives. If it wasn't for US coverage, most Canadians would even know about protesters getting trampled by horses or that trucker that had his ribs broken from repeated police kicks to the chest while he was down. A guy who literally escaped from a communist Romania.
They're talking about banning Fox news here. Because they had some pro protestor coverage.
Thank you. The Globe and Mail did mention the trampling incident and Ottawa Citizen is definitely not an US source. I only know of Adam Vaughn from his stances on housing which have discredited him in my eyes.
If you needed another reminder that Thiel delights in and financially backs despotic authoritarianism, here it is. His vision for our country's future is Russia today.
How is backing a permissive free speech focused video hosting site authoritarianism? Authoritarians lock down and control speech. You have it completely backwards.
Putin, for example, does not support anything remotely like Rumble. It's the opposite of what he supports.
Well, neither am I, considering that the Western governments have been using the term "democracy" to launder a specific flavor of apparatchik authoritarianism.
